“Over 80,000 new flats are expected to be completed in the next few years; highly skilled workers are in demand, however, the workforce continues to be diminished due to retirement and shortage of new entrants into the sector,” she added.

Year-on-year, the outlook in the services sector has increased by 3 percentage points. Shortage of talent in technology continues to accelerate hiring intentions in this sector.

Chui added that big data projects to analyse customer data for development and planning, continue to boost demand for IT talent. Cloud computing, solution architecture and IT project management-related positions are also in demand.

Although the economy appears to be losing steam in Hong Kong and China, job prospects in the finance, insurance and real estate sector remain steady recording two percentage points year on year increase.